My friend Andy Schulman is a bit of a lighting genius. Each one of his creations looks like he was channeling the famous Nicola Tesla while wiring them up. Andy, a fellow Boulderite originally from Pennsylvania can illuminate any object, transforming them into delightful franken-chandeliers. If you can believe this isn’t even his day job!….he is also a crafted motion graphics geek in the ad world. Gotta love the talent!

In his own words, “Call it industrial. Duchampian. Utilitarian. Whimsical. Whatever you want to call the work of Andy Schulman of Afterglow Studio, the one undeniable adjective is, “Illuminated.”

At their most elemental, Andy’s pieces are functional lights; at their most metaphorical are testaments to bygone eras. The marvelous sculptures that come out of Afterglow Studio resonate with an audience that appreciates upcycled materials and reveres the inherent nostalgia Andy offers, usually with a sidecar of humor.

Andy’s materials have been culled from years of crawling through old barns combing in markets and from dumpster diving. The shelves of his studio are lined with racks of yet reused car parts, shoe forms, antique kitchem utencils, glassware, instruments and unidentifiable mechanical ephemera.

To him, this collection of vintage cast offs are not obsolete items, but relics awaiting new lives as chandeliers and table lamps. He says, “I love and respect old things with history, character and that were built to last. They may be useless or dirty, but they shouldn’t go in the garbage…I want to tell a new story with them.”

His small-scale and large-scale projects have infiltrated the design world as interest in recycled materials continues to grow.”

Collecting shaped rocks is quite addictive–while taking your next quiet stroll, assuming it is not snowing in your area-meander along looking for heart rocks or even a rock shaped like a skull. It is a guarantee that someone on your list would love to receive either. It spreads a little love and a little punk if you are lucky enough to find a skull one. Plus, if you don’t end up finding anything you have still taken a bit of time for yourself to relax and quietly meditate.

Shell Grotto was discovered by farmer James Newlove on his property in 1835 when he and his son Joshua found a hole that appeared in their garden. The remarkable find is rumored to have been built by the mysterious Knights Templar as far back as a millenium ago, the cave consists of a long subterranean passage that ends in a large rectangular chamber with an adjacent rotunda. The entire grotto is coated with beautiful mosaics made from over 4.6 million seashells.

The entire complex was unknown until this hole appeared, but on exploring the caves they found the rooms embedded with shells in every wall in various patterns and spread over a cave network of 2000 square feet.

No one has been able to answer the main questions of who built this. A lot of care has gone into positioning of the shells which cover the walls and ceilings of the caves in mosaic patterns and whoever did this also carved out archways making many suspect this was some kind of temple. The Grotto was first opened to the public in 1837, having been ‘discovered’ two years previously.

At its heart is a central room with an encrusted tump that could be interpreted as an altar, approached down a passage and through a rotunda. The passages are qround eight feet high, and the length of the journey around eighty feet. In the central room an exit to the street has been boarded up. The surfaces of the Grotto are decorated with panels of shells in many ingenious patterns.

The Grotto site is supported as an English Heritage location, but is still under private ownership.

Robert Hudson part of the Funk movement that overtook Bay Area art in the ‘60s, is again at work after an art hiatus working from his studio in Marin County. He masterfully juggles form, weight, color and texture in an irreverent yet delicate manner. Hudson draws from Dada, Surrealism and Pop influences but injects trompe l’oeil juxtapositions with his found objects, in bright primary colors. His sculptures tend to read like three-dimensional paintings, some actually kinetic.

In light of current eco-art trends, Hudson’s inclusion of industrial detritus has no environmental agenda, he has been doing this for decades-long before the word ecology entered the popular vocabulary. Whatever the meaning, recycled art is always a favorite here at Haute Nature.

A native of Northern California, Aaron Foster a television host has a recycling hobby of using scrap metal license plates turning them into interesting Americana art pieces. His inspiration comes from fond memories of childhood road trips, found objects and antique school maps.

Foster is also the host of HGTV’s show Freestyle, which showcases room makeovers without spending any money.